Ottoman Leadership:
Despite the world-changing liberation of Istanbul by the Turks in 1453, the reign of Suleyman I (or Suleiman I) the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566) marked the peak of Ottoman grandeur. Upon his ascension in 1520 he began his reign with campaigns against the Christian powers in central Europe and the Mediterranean. Belgrade, the island of Rhodes and Hungary all fell to the Ottomans within 6 years, however, they were defeated after a multinational European force stopped the Ottoman advance at Vienna in 1529. He annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.

Suleyman was known as the ‘Lawgiver’ in his realm because he issued a series of non-Islamic laws to help harmonize social life within the Ottoman Empire. His proponents suggest he was different from his predecessors because he was a man of the pen as well as of the sword. During his reign, Suleiman ensured that Shariah law was practiced uniformly across the Empire by legal assistants and experts. Suleyman and many experts went through the judgment of his nine predecessors, eliminated duplications, and contradictory statements and created a single uniform legal code which remained within the laws of Islam. Also known as the Ottoman Laws, this code lasted for over three centuries.

Suleyman sough to reduce the levels of corruption within his multiethnic Empire, and he even passed laws that made it illegal to be discriminatory against the Empire’s Christian subjects. However, Suleyman had a dark side as well. One of Suleyman’s sons, Selim II, succeeded him, but only after Suleyman had ordered one of his sons to be strangled to death (1553), another one executed (1561), along with the execution of four other sons after a rebellion.

Safavid Leadership:
Early Safavid power in Iran was based on the military power of the Qizilbash, a coalition of many different tribes of predominantly (but not exclusively) Turkic-speaking background united in their adherence to Shia Islam. Some Hindu elements in the belief of reincarnation syncretized into the heterodox beliefs among the Turkmen tribes, causing the Qizilbash to view their Safavid leader (“the Perfect Guide") as the reincarnation of Ali and a manifestation of the divine in human form.

Shah Abbas I, also known as Abbas the Great (r. 1588-1629), was arguably the greatest of all Safavid leaders.

Abbas was a great builder and moved his kingdom's capital from Qazvin to Isfahan, making the city the pinnacle of Safavid architecture. Under Abbas, Isfahan became a social crossroads where European and Indian traders, travelers and adventurers mixed with many levels of Safavid society. Shah 'Abbas saw the rulers of Christian Europe as potential military allies against his enemies, the Ottomans, as well as commercial partners. Luxury Iranian silk was exchanged for gold and silver, which was in short supply in Iran but plentiful in Europe thanks to new supplies from South America. He was tolerant of Europeans and encouraged them to come to Iran. Catholic priests, representatives of the Dutch and British East India Companies and European ambassadors all mixed in the cosmopolitan society of Isfahan.

Shah Abbas had three sons that survived past their childhood and were all potential heirs to the throne. Abbas believed rumors that his eldest son was conspiring against him, so he had him killed. After falling seriously ill in 1621, the next son, believing his father was on his death bed, began celebrating. Abbas recovered, had the son blinded (disqualifying him from becoming Shah), and had him imprisoned. The third son started on good terms with Abbas, but later the Shah had him blinded and imprisoned as well. Succession to the throne eventually went to one of Abbas’ grandsons.

Military and Conquest:

The Ottomans, a Sunni dynasty, considered the active recruitment of Turkmen tribes of Anatolia for the Safavid cause as a major threat. In 1514, Sultan Selim I marched through Anatolia and met the Safavid army, leading to the decisive Battle of Chaldiran. Most sources agree that the Ottoman army was at least double the size of that of the Safavids, however, what gave the Ottomans the advantage was the use of guns and artillery, which the Safavid army lacked.

By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi, extending over three continents. In addition, the Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea. The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the leaders of all Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders, and so the two were locked in a worldwide conflict. For instance, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia. During the 1600s, the worldwide conflict between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both powers were at similar population, technology and economic levels.

Military and Conquest:
Under Shah Abbās I (r. 1588-1629), the army underwent significant reform. Three bodies of troops were formed, paid out of the royal treasury: the ghulāms (slaves), the tofangchīs (musketeers), and the topchīs (artillerymen). With this new army, Abbās defeated the Turks in 1603, forcing them to relinquish all the territory they had seized prevoiusly, and captured Baghdad. He also expelled (1602, 1622) the Portuguese traders who had seized the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf early in the 16th century.

The Safavids raised Persia to the status of a great power. Trade with the West and industry expanded, communications improved. Abbas moved the capital to Isfahan and made it the center of Safavid architectural achievement, manifest in several notable mosques and monuments. Despite the Safavid Shia zeal, Christians were tolerated, and several missions and churches were built.

Abbas I was the first ruler to establish a significant corps of musketeers and a separate corps of artillery, which were relatively effective but were always outnumbered by masses of cavalry armed with lances, swords, and bows.

Society:

The basic division in Ottoman society was the traditional Middle Eastern distinction between a small ruling class of Ottomans (Osmanl) and a large mass of subjects called rayas. Three attributes were essential for membership in the Ottoman ruling class: profession of loyalty to the sultan and his state; acceptance and practice of Islam, and adherence to the customs, behavior, and language known as the Ottoman Way. Those who lacked any of those attributes were considered to be rayas (the subject class), the “protected flock” of the sultan.

Rayas could potentially rise into the ruling class, and Ottomans could fall into the subject class. Members of the ruling class were considered the sultan’s slaves, and their properties, lives, and persons were entirely at his disposition. Their basic functions were to preserve the Islamic nature of the state and to rule and defend the empire. By Ottoman theory the main attribute of the sultan’s sovereignty was the right to possess and exploit all sources of wealth in the empire. The function of enlarging, protecting, and exploiting that wealth for the benefit of the sultan and his state, therefore, was the main duty of the ruling class. The rayas produced the wealth by farming the land or engaging in trade and industry and then paying a portion of the resulting profits to the ruling class in the form of taxes.

The basic class divisions within the subject class were determined by religion, with each important group organizing into a relatively self-contained autonomous religious community usually called a millet (also taife or cemaat), which operated under its own laws and customs and was directed by a religious leader responsible to the sultan for the fulfillment of the duties and responsibilities of the millet members, particularly those of paying taxes and security. In addition, each millet cared for the many social and administrative functions not assumed by the Ottoman ruling class, concerning such matters as marriage, divorce, birth and death, health, education, internal security, and justice. The purpose of the millet system was to keep the different peoples of the empire separated in order to minimize conflict and preserve social order in a highly heterogeneous state.

Devshirme was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects. Ottoman soldiers would take European Christian males, aged 8 to 20 - often forcibly - and relocate them to Istanbul, where they would be trained. The devshirme was often resented by locals though some Christian families volunteered their sons, as service offered good career options. The boys were given a formal education, and trained in science, warfare and bureaucratic administration, and became advisers to the sultan, elite infantry, generals in the army, admirals in the navy, and bureaucrats working on finance in the Ottoman Empire.

Society:

Safavid society could be considered a meritocracy, meaning a society in which officials were appointed on the basis of worth and merit, and not on the basis of birth. It was certainly not an oligarchy, nor was it an aristocracy. Sons of nobles were considered for the succession of their fathers as a mark of respect, but they had to prove themselves worthy of the position. This system avoided an entrenched aristocracy or a caste society. There even are numerous recorded accounts of laymen that rose to high official posts, as a result of their merits.

Nevertheless, the Iranian society during the Safavids was that of a hierarchy, with the Shah at the apex of the hierarchical pyramid, the common people, merchants and peasants at the base, and the aristocrats in between. Safavid society was composed mostly of rural villagers as well as nomadic pastoralists and an urban elite. The Shi’i clergy or mullahs also held considerable power, particularly over the largely illiterate peasantry, who looked to the clergy for religious and political guidance.

Many mullahs were large landowners and used the revenues from their property to provide independent financing for religious schools and foundations. Thus, when the central authority in Persia was weak, the mullahs often became a political force in their own right.
Safavid rulers were dependent on taxations and revenues from vast Crown or state land and often used land to reward loyal officers and bureaucratic officials. Under Abbas I, the Crown also had a state monopoly over the sale of silk and encouraged a lively trade with western European powers as well as with Russia.

Role of Women:

Women's social life was often one of relative seclusion, as was common in many cultures at the time. However, the type of seclusion changed, sometimes drastically, depending on class. Urban women lived in some amount of sex segregation during most of the empire's history, as many social gatherings were segregated, and many upper-class urban women veiled in public areas.

The Sultanate of Women occurred between 1533 and 1656, beginning with the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. These sultanas were either the wives of the Sultan, or the mothers of the Sultan. Many of these women were of slave origins, as was expected of the sultanate, since traditional marriage roles were considered too large a risk for the Sultan, who was expected to have no personal allegiances outside his title. During this time, sultanas held political and social power, which allowed them to influence the daily running of the empire, as well as requesting the construction of buildings (e.g., mosques), and philanthropic works.

Even with a direct connection to the sultan, many sultanas often faced opposition from the viziers of the sultan, as well as from public opinion. Where their male predecessors had won favor with the public through military conquest and charisma, female leaders had to rely on imperial ceremonies and the construction of monuments and public works.

Role of Women:
There were distinct types of women in Safavid Iran: the married wives of upper-class men, those living in more rural and communal settlements, those engaged in arts and crafts and industrial activities within towns and cities, those who contracted temporary marriages, slaves of both sexes, and prostitutes. Women married to elites especially were more secluded in their households and were required to be veiled out in public. However, at some times and in some places within the Persian Empire, some women did resist wearing face coverings, played important roles in politics, and engaged in trade and moneylending.

Virtually all marriages were arranged, organized by parents, with the bride’s family offering a dowry (gifts to the groom’s family). Lifelong celibacy, especially for men, was considered as unnatural and unacceptable. Girls were supposed to maintain their virginity until their wedding night; however, males were encouraged to experience sex at their earliest practical age.

Divorce was available to both the male and the female, and remarriage was relatively easy. "If a husband repudiated his wife he was obliged to return her dowry, but if it was the wife who sued for divorce she forfeited it" (Ferrier, p388).

Some women born of more common or lowly status acquired power and wealth through prostitution, whose activities also included singing and dancing. Regarding art, male and female space were often distinguished, whether separated by tents or buildings. Thus women are portrayed, but placed in a space separate from that of the men.

Culture:
The legal and customary bases of organization and action for the Ottomans depended on a dual system of law: Shariah, the Muslim religious law, and the kanun, or civil law. Shariah, based heavily on the Qu’ran and early Muslim tradition, was the basic law of Ottoman society, as it was of all Muslim communities. For the Ottomans, it never was developed in detail in matters of public law, state organization, and administration. Its general principles left room for interpretation and legislation on specific matters by secular authorities, and the Muslim judges of the Ottoman Empire recognized the right of the sultan to legislate in civil laws as long as he did not conflict with Shariah in detail or principle. Shariah, therefore, provided the principles of public law and covered matters of personal behavior and status in the Muslim millets in the same way that the members of the Christian and Jewish millets were subject to their own religious codes. The members of the ulama who interpreted the law in the courts had the right to invalidate any secular law they felt contradicted Shariah; however, they rarely used that right, because, as part of the ruling class, they were under the authority of the sultan and could be removed from their positions.

Several anthropology experts state that the reign of Suleyman was a cultural Golden Age because there were improvements in every field of the Arts; notable improvement came in the areas of calligraphy, textiles, ceramics, and manuscript painting. The Sultan ensured that hundreds of artistic societies came to Topkapi Palace in the Empire’s capital. As early as 1526, there were 40 societies with over 600 members, and this number only grew over time.

Culture:

By the early 16^th century, Safavid leaders declared Shi’ism as the state religion, despite having been largely Sunni from its inception.

Following his conquest of Persia, Ismail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population. The Sunni Ulema - or clergy - were either killed or exiled. Ismail I, brought in Shi’a religious leaders and granted them land and money in return for loyalty.

Abbas’ tolerance towards Christians was part of his policy of establishing diplomatic links with European powers to try to enlist their help in the fight against their common enemy, the Ottoman Empire.

The shah eagerly sought an alliance with Spain, the chief opponent of the Ottomans in Europe. Abbas offered trading rights and the chance to preach Christianity in Persia in return for help against the Ottomans. However, despite some minor agreements, Abbas’ overtures produced relatively little in terms of a meaningful alliance.

Safavid Persia was very multicultural as a pivotal location along the Silk and Sea Roads. Chinese influence was seen in many ways, including syncretism in the arts. Chinese as well as Safavid artisans blended their own styles with regard to metalworking, painting, calligraphy, glass and tile work, and pottery.

Shah 'Abbas’s reign was a golden age for the arts in Iran. Abbas understood the power of a single message and was keen to imprint a visual style on his empire. He employed calligraphers, painters, bookbinders and illuminators to produce manuscripts and design inscriptions and paintings for buildings. Carpets of silk and gold, calligraphy and the portraiture all embody the period of Shah 'Abbas I.